Egg Drop Soup

Egg Drop Soup

We had planned to have guests over for dinner on Monday night, but Ann texted early morning saying she wasn't feeling well and had cancelled dinner. And then she texted to ask if I would make some soup even though we had just made soup the week before. She knows that I don't like to repeat the same things.

I decided this time rather than going the Vietnamese route, to do more of a classic Chinese soup. And then when I got home, I mentioned that I might poach an egg right in the soup so that we could break open a nice runny egg into the soup. But she asked me to make her stracciatella, the Italian version of egg drop soup.

And so I put on a big pot of water with a couple pounds of chicken necks, half a pound of ginger, some garlic, some green onion bulbs, some cilantro stems, and some celery leaves. After this cooked very slowly for about 90 minutes, I put in a whole chicken and let it poach until it was done, another couple of hours. I fished the chicken out and let it cool while I strained the broth.

From here, just a small matter of some vegetable prep: thinly sliced snow peas, straw mushrooms, bamboo shoots, pickled mustard stems, sliced green onions, and tiny baby bok choy.



Garnishes (except the chicken) Ready for Soup Bowls

Once the garnishes were prepped, I put them straight into our soup bowls and then beat a couple of eggs while the stock came back to a wicked boil. Into the stock went the eggs. And then I ladled the boiling stock into our soup bowls.


Soup Bowl Ready for Broth

I love soup. So really, no real hardship to make it two weeks running.